Not all that long ago, I regularly blogged on Myspace about each and every episode of Doctor Who as they aired. I'm interrupting what might turn out to be a short series on BBC Horror Movie double-bills because I've fallen out of love with this series and wanted to examine why. The vague, nagging sense of anti-climax I felt throughout Series Five is back with a vengeance. I was informed on Facebook that this series is appealing to "The Thinking Fan". As if the patronising assumptions in that statement weren't bad enough, I'd already been burned by the petty, paranoid bullies on the FB Doctor Who Magazine page who have their pronouncements plastered over the letters pages every month. The Thinking Fan orthodoxy worries me deeply.
My disenchantment started with the first two episodes. Despite the cinematic sweep of the story, I found it too elaborate and too intricate. It was concept-driven rather than character-driven so the Tardis crew became cyphers- the Doctor's overegged quirkiness; Amy's mood-swings and selfishness; and Rory's nerdiness. All the chopping and changing was unsatisfying and frustrating because none of the threads from the last series were tied up before yet more tantalising titbits were tossed our way. I blame the meandering and convoluted Lost for this encroaching style but I'm also reminded of Chris Claremont piling one mystery on top of another throughout his years on the X-Men; so many of them never resolved or even addressed.
After an empty American prologue for revelations that won't come for months, we got the pedestrian, studio-bound pirate episode which was confusing , derivative and poorly edited. The only highlight of the series so far was The Doctor's Wife which, despite the misdirection of the title, was charming and engaging (provided you ignore the cliche Gothic corridor sequence). However, in yet another instance of the Curse of the Conventional Two-Parter, the Ganger story lacked tension, used yet another cute kid to generate pathos and completely undermined its own message with the bloody "game-changing" twist.
I'm not convinced that that most tired of sci-fi tropes, Mysterious Pregancy, is remotely appropriate in a kids' show. (Don't even start; Death of a Salesman this is not, okay?) Why was the Doctor being so mysterious about the scans? More importantly, why did Moffat feel it necessary to tease the audience-however briefly- with the idea that the Doctor might be Baby Pond's father? His middle-class-liberal sexual humour is just wrong in the context of this show. And we'll deal with Doctor "I'm a screamer" Song shortly...
Do you know me?
A Good Man Goes To War was another episode without a discernible plot and sketchy charaterisation. I was reminded of the Children of Time as the Trickster put the band back together- although this time we hadn't actually met the band. There was the lesbian Victorian human-reptile couple (cue cutesy Lady Penelope gag) and the gender-bending Sontaran (the only genuinely likeable character in the wild bunch). Apparently the Oncoming Storm was calling in old debts. But...the Silurians? Really? The fat blue guy from one scene last year. Really?! And Lorna... the Gamma people have no word for Pond but they do have the word Bucket. Dreadful.
I would have loved this episode thirty, maybe even twenty years ago. Unfortunately, now I see it's a pointless, bombastic runaround that exists purely to pad the story out to the Big Reveal.
The regular reappearances of Bernice Summerfield- proxy River Song have been a series of diminishing returns. Despite her touching encounter with Rory- is this the first time she meets her father? I wasn't sure- her behaviour seemed quite eccentric but we have to assume she couldn't interfere in case the Ponds left Demon's Run with the Melody avatar.
I completely understand why people might hate the character. She can be smug and cloying. If the Doctor is humouring and flirting with a murderer, then it's either grossly out of character or Moffat is flippant and insensitive. I liked her better as a tragic heroine- the companion we'd never live to see- although she did join the excessive ranks of tragic lost companions that litter the Tennant Era. The River who existed in my head with her glamourous, amorous career, encountering the Fourteenth or Twenty-second Doctor on the Sense-Sphere, in San Francisco or on Clom, was always going to be greater than the version we have. Did we ever really need to know who she was? Look at Wolverine- a mysterious, ageless, globe-trotting adventurer for decades, finally marketed to cinema audiences as the klutz who broke Ma and Pa Kent's toilet.
Up until virtually the last minute, Moffat toyed with the audience that she might even be a future incarnation of the Doctor. I had figured out her true identity about a month ago. There was no point in her being some obscure character from the past- Romana, Susan, President Flavia- for the current audience, Martha Jones is in the distant past. But there's no indication why Dr. Song had to be so coy about her origins last series.
Alex Kingston must be doing something right: I've had a lump in my throat on the second and third viewing, despite her terrible ER-style dialogue (" Amy, you're fine, you're good" delivered as if Pond were throwing up a bottle of vodka after a student party.) But I'm afraid Moffat has fallen a little too hard for his Bad Girl.
(I have to point out here that after a series and a half, the charms of Amy Pond continue to evade me. Karen Gillan is a very pretty girl- although as a type, that's quite commonplace in the North-East - but the scowling, muttering character doesn't appeal to me on any other level.)
All that portentous guff about rising so high then falling so much further didn't seem to have any kind of pay-off. The only reason for this mid-season break seems to be to ensure audience figures don't drop in the summer months. Why not return the series to its late- Seventies and Eighties position in the autumn schedule then?
All this carping and I haven't even mentioned Matt Smith.
I love Matt Smith. He is so much better than Tennant ever was and seems to have acquired some real gravity since Series Five. His Doctor is the one reason I keep coming back. Arthur Darvill's sympathetic and understated Rory is also very enjoyable. However, I'm convinced he's the "good man" that River said she'll kill. What father wouldn't sacrifice himself to get his baby back?
Ultimately, I don't think this IS a series for the Thinking Fan. It might be for the Clever Fan but it's not for the Intelligent Fan. I'd prefer to see Steven Moffat move on if this predeliction for "game-changing revelations" and deaths that don't stick continues. It just speaks of such a lack of confidence and a dismissal of the audience that keeps the series afloat. It's like the comic book fashion of writing for the trade- writing for the box set. In Lawrence Miles' apt phrase, "Twilight with time travel" is not for me. Oh, and we've still got to sit through bloody James Corden. Again.
I returned to audio for The Feast of Axos: a trad tale of space tourism and energy crises. It's also the second part of the Sixth Doctor trilogy featuring tricksy Victorian urchin Thomas Brewster- referred to by the Doctor as "That Boy" but played by thirty-something John Pickard. I sometimes wish Nick Briggs could move on from his apparent mission to include every entry from the Doctor Who Monster Book in Big Finish productions. The series has already spawned enough original baddies- the Forge, the Viryans, the Kiseibiyaa, the Selachians- without having to revisit every single monster from the 60s and 70s. Feast moves at spacewalking pace and suffers the BF curse of "waffer-theen" European accents. It's not unlikeable but Axos was such a visual monster so recasting Bernard Holley from nearly forty years ago is a bit of a "so-what?" moment. Evelyn has quite a touching scene but since we already know how her story ends (clue: A Death in the Family 2010), there's no sense of genuine peril, mild or otherwise.
The supporting cast are all rather one-dimensional but I've learned today that I should try to pay more attention. One of the minor characters in The Crimes of Thomas Brewster, Flip Jackson, will be Sixie's new, young audio companion. I can't remember any defining character trait about her whatsoever and I only listened to the bloody thing a fortnight ago. I was hoping they were going to go with Brewster -whose continued presence suggested some significance-or even the drily cynical Patricia Menzies. Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll bother with the final Brewster story if he's being dropped in Industrial Evolution.
Next: Famous Monsters of Filmland
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